ow loud the
river sounds!"

"Suppose we go down and look," said Polly. "It will not take us long
and the road runs close to the bank."

He turned the car accordingly and they sped down the steep road, the
sky growing brighter above them and the darkness fading as the moon
came out. When they reached the last incline the whole of the valley
lands, spread below them, were so flooded with light that the broad
picture looked like an etching--white fields, black trees with blacker
splashes of shade, sharp-cut, pointed shadows of houses and farm
buildings, the silver expanse of the river, and the straight, white
ribbon of the road. It was all very still and peaceful, with scarcely
a light in any house and no single moving figure upon the highway.
Medford Valley, worn out with its day of merrymaking, was wrapped in
heavy sleep. Very strangely, the sight of this unsuspecting,
slumbering community seemed to fill them all with sudden misgiving.

"I hope there's nothing wrong," muttered Oliver, swinging the car into
its highest speed as they dashed down the road.

John Massey's house lay still and dark in the moonlight, its windows
staring with the blank eyes that an uninhabited dwelling always shows
the moment home life has gone out of it. They stopped the car near his
gate and climbed out, all three of them, to walk at the foot of the
high, grass-covered bank and search for signs of danger. It looked
firm and solid enough, with its thick, green sod, its fringe of
willows along the top, but with the whispering haste of the river
sounding plainly against its outer wall. Standing on tiptoe, they
could catch sight of the swift, sliding water, risen so high that it
touched the very top of the bank. The roar of the swollen current
could be heard all across the valley, but it was not so ominous,
somehow, as the smaller voices of the ripples sucking and gurgling so
close to their ears.

They walked along, three ghostly figures in the moonlight, until
Janet, who happened to be ahead, stopped suddenly.

"I hear something strange; I don't understand what it is," she said.

Oliver stepped forward, bending his head to listen. Yes, he could hear
it, too.

The sound was a soft hissing, as though a tiny snake might be hidden
in the grass at their feet. But there was no grass thick enough for
such shelter, only a few sparse stalks, rising in a drift of sand at
the foot of the dike. The noise was made by the moving of the sand
particle